Asahi Shimbun
March 28, 2000
Women in their mid-30s with university degrees and postgraduate qualifications are rapidly falling out of the labor market after giving up seeking work, according to a Labor Ministry report released Monday.
The report, titled Women's White Book 1999, details a survey of the number of women who are either working or seeking work, as a ratio of the total number of women in each respective age group and educational category.
Female high school graduates appeared most active on the job market, with around 80 percent of those aged 20-24 either working or seeking work.
That figure dipped below 60 percent for those 30-34 years old-the most common ages during which women give birth and raise children.
The figure rises, however, among those aged 35-39, and reaches its second peak of 72.8 percent for those aged 45-49.
The corresponding figure for female college graduates, including those who have completed postgraduate studies, peaks among those aged 20-24, at 93.4 percent, and falls to around 60 percent for those aged 35-39. The rate recovers somewhat for women in the 40s, but only reaches 66 percent among 45 to 49-year-olds.
The report concludes that the female college graduates are willing to work in their respective professions, and that it is therefore important for society to support such women according to their eagerness and their abilities.
Among female college graduates 30-34 years old, when many are busy raising children, an overwhelming majority-86.8 percent-replied either that they would like to work as soon as possible or that they wanted to resume working once their situations had made it possible to do so.
Those women also placed importance on the type of work they wanted, as well as on convenient working hours. But nearly 80 percent said they felt their age made it impossible to find the work they desired, the survey found.
In contrast, 35.6 percent of companies surveyed said that they had turned down job-seekers for lacking sufficient motivation, while only 17.3 percent said unsuccessful applicants were simply too old.